Including assessment of your learning through regular supervision and monitoring

The purpose of this training programme is to provide a thorough and more in-depth training programme in ACT and other contextual behavioural approaches.
The training incorporates regular feedback. Such measurement and
feedback is there to focus and deepen the process of learning and
skill acquisition. This training programme incorporates ACT, FAP and RFT modules. As the ACT model evolves, its training and practice continues to be influenced by RFT. We therefore feel it’s important to include an RFT module. Advanced ACT practitioners also tend to have FAP training under their belts as this deepens the ACT therapist’s ability to apply a deeper functional analysis to the therapeutic relationship. These 12 days of training can be taken without opting for the supervision programme (delivered in fortnightly supervision meetings), leading to a certificate of attendance of our professional programme in ACT and Contextual Behaviour Therapy.

Those completing the supervision and assessment parts of the training will receive a
statement of training outcomes documenting what you achieved in ACT competency rating, knowledge tests, as well as how much supervision they received.

The supervision and assessment process

Our training process is designed to cover the ‘head’, ‘heart’ and ‘hands’ of ACT. We will therefore assess your practice of ACT from the perspectives of knowledge, personal experience and skills.

To present over the course of the training, 240mins of rated audio excerpts (each 20mins in length), including beginning, middle and ending phases of your ACT practice, with at least 4 clients.

Final assessment consists of 1) showcasing your latest ACT work in three 20min audio recordings of beginning, middle and ends phases respectively, 2) Answering short essay questions in a written exam, and 3) Submitting a 2000 word journal containing insights along the path of applying ACT to yourself, as well as pivotal moments in your development as a practitioner.

Supervision to start after Intermediate level of ACT is completed.

Completing the training modules without the supervision and assessment process leads to certificates of attendance for each training module completed, and a certificate to summarise all the modules completed on our training programme.

This programme does not certify, accredit or approve ACT therapists (following the non-hierarchical ethos of the ACBS community). However, it will provide you with a Training Outcomes certificate stating what you did and the ratings you achieved in your ACT skills development

*These ‘requirements’ are not a locked in system for certifying a particular standard. They are minimums to ensure the course runs smoothly and productively. No fixed standards of ACT practice currently exist in the ACBS community. ACT and Contextual Behavioural Science are evolving disciplines subject to peer-review.

ACT and Contextual Behavioural Therapy: ACT, FAP and RFT

Name of Module

Days/Hours

ACT Four Day Skills Intensive Part 1 of 2: (with Martin Wilks and Henry Whitfield)

4 Days/ 28hrs

ACT Four Day Skills Intensive
Part 2 of 2: (with David Gillanders and Henry Whitfield)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy marries mindfulness and behaviour change strategies to offer a highly versatile mindfulness-informed cognitive behavioural therapy. This 'marriage' has done much to reach clients who shied away from traditional CBT, and brought a more evidence-based approach to those who previously thrived best in the more 'humanistic' approaches. Over 150 randomised control trials have shown that ACT is effective at addressing a wide range of psychological issues (See https://contextualscience.org/state_of_the_act_evidence for more details).

An essential part of progressing as a therapist is to receive regular feedback. Evidence suggests that short two day workshops do little to bring about behaviour change in psychological therapists (Luoma, 2009). Hence we offer a training for those who want to develop the skills to offer ACT with confidence and flexibility. We also provide on going supervision as an additional service

Our modular ACT training offers a well tested, systematic approach to ACT skills building, developed over 9 years of ACT teaching experience. Henry Whitfield and Martin Wilks offered the first dedicated ACT skills training in the UK and have trained over 900 ACT therapists. Efficient skills learning methods have always been the primary focus of our training programmes.

Workshop contents:

Aim: After these four days of training you should be ready to apply all key ACT processes flexibly to your client work. You will also have had multiple opportunities to experience the benefits of each ACT process personally.

The majority of the learning will be experiential in the sense that will ask you to integrate what you learn through application in role-plays, real-plays or group exercises. The many live and video examples of ACT will inform your practice. We structure the training to give you considerable experience in applying the demonstrated principles to varied contexts, flexibly. Remember not to be formulaic! Be present. Every client moment is unique.

Confronting the control agenda. When controlling your thoughts and feelings is unworkable, how do you ease a client out of the 'quicksand'?
Finding your compass points: How to assess values that inspire new behaviour. How to overcome and respond to the pitfalls in values clarification.

The trappings of language: Learn a spectrum of methods for loosening the grip of thought and language. Hold lightly those ideas that push for unworkable behaviour. 'I'm not good enough, therefore I...'

Day 2:

Behaviour change: Do your action tendencies match your values? What does your mind have to say about the new path before you? Bringing behaviour change to what you learnt in day one, you will coach and be coached to walk a new path.

Acceptance: Wilingness to be in difficult therapeutic situations. Willingness to walk that path you have been avoiding. What does your mind tell you you would rather not experience? Transforming the function of those feelings you hate, you will coach each other to know and feel what is more important than the feelings you avoid.

Present moment: Examples of eye-closed meditations and one on one interventions that bring a client out of her mind and into the present.

Psychological flexibility and self-concept issues: How to develop and foster a flexible sense of self.

The majority of the learning will be experiential in the sense that will ask you to integrate what you learn through application in role-plays, real-plays or group exercises. The many live and video examples of ACT will inform your practice. We structure the training to give you considerable experience in applying the demonstrated principles to varied contexts, flexibly. Remember not to be formulaic! Be present. Every client moment is unique.

Day 3:

Moving seemlessly between the processes. Practice applying multiple ACT processes together. The right combination in the right context can be pivotal.
Overview of all processes with clinical examples. r />
Guided meditation that includes all six processes.
Live and video examples of Willingness and Values.
These two processes naturally feed into each other. Pain leads to values, values lead to pain.
Accessing the value that is more important than the pain/avoided emotion.
Present moment and Willingness.
To be more aware is to open up. Video and live examples of applying these two processes together.

Time for practice and feedback.

Day 4:

Bringing four processes together using metaphors such as the Life Bus. More live and video examples to analyse. Emphasizing the coupling of cognitive defusion and committed action. What do the bus passengers say as you turn the wheel of the bus towards what's important? Break the rules!

Present moment and the observer self. Get present to the ever changing process of yourself concept.

Further video examples to 'bring it all together'. All six processes applied in one session flexibly.

Further real-plays for applying it all, as the moment demands, flexibly, and with feedback.

On completion of this intermediate-advanced level course you will have:

1) a thorough experience of case-formulation and it's application to a client of yours
2) received personal feedback from David or Henry on your style of practice
3) targeted areas for improvement in your personal ACT practice
4) expanded your physicalized repertoire
If you didn’t already, you should feel confident enough to call yourself an ACT therapist, after this training.

Four day programme breakdown

Day 5:

Where is your ACT practice currently at? A tool for finding holes in your skill set. What would you particularly like to improve during this training process?
Examples and practice of Functional analysis in case-formulation, and ‘on the fly’ in the therapeutic relationship.
David’s latest approach to case-formulation and treatment planning
Roleplay: put your treatment plan into action (with feedback from the trainers).

Day 6:

Facing barriers to being the therapist you would like to be.
Roleplay: taking the perpective of the client you/your diad/triad partner wishes to help (with feedback from the trainers to the person practicing)
Live demonstration – applying the physicalised lifeline protocol.
Realplay practice of the Lifeline with personal feedback from the trainers.
Setting tasks to practice before the next session

Day 7(after 4 weeks break):

Report back on how ACT practice went in personal and professional contexts. Troubleshooting questions answered.
Live demonstration of working with a difficult client, tracking the trainer’s moves with cross process tracking form.
Overview of common sticking points with examples of how to respond to them.
Further roleplay practice of sticking points discussed - with feedback from the trainers.

Day 8:

Going deeper and slower in your practice of ACT.
Moving beyond the techniques to work at relational depth.
Ways to nurture powerful and containing therapeutic relationships
Practice at showing up to in session emotion with compassion

The workshop presenters will be completing rounds during experiential pair work to give individual feedback on your ACT practice (Maximum 10 students per trainer).

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This course has been adapted by Louise McHugh, Ian Stewart and Priscilla Almada from their upcoming book in 2018 – ‘A Contextual Behavioral Guide to the self’ into 8 weekly sessions. This provides you with more time to digest the contents of the course.

The most important relationship any individual has is the one with themselves; any challenges you have with yourself will leak into your relationships with others. A healthy self is pretty much universally seen as a prerequisite for sound mental functioning, while dysfunctional or underdeveloped aspects of self are understood to contribute to poor mental health. When a therapist is working with a client, one key aim is to help the client to have peace of mind (from a relational frame theory point of view ‘mind’ is a metaphor for verbal behavior – relation framing). In order to have this, we cannot avoid our self. We cannot walk away from our self. Our self is with us no matter where we go. In this online series we will introduce Relational Frame Theory and how it applies to the self. In brief from an RFT point of view, you want therapeutic techniques that foster variability, stability, functional coherence and a flexible sense of responsibility.

Any techniques that do the following can help foster a healthy sense of self:

1. Find variability in the process of awareness

This can involve stabilizing the clients perspective, (e.g., repeatedly directing the client’s attention to the present, so as to help her notice the changes in her experiences. How do you feel now, and now and now?i) Or getting the client to notice changes in perspective, (e.g., recall different situations and moments of her life).

2. Find stability in a sense of perspective

This can involve noticing the common perspective across experiences (e.g., who is noticing thoughts, sensations and feelings across a variety of experiences, and noticing the common perspective across points of view (e.g.,notice who is noticing the experiences of you today, yesterday, in a years time).

3. Find coherence in context

This can involve emphasizing the hierarchical dimension of self (e.g., you are the container of all your experiences) and emphasizing the distinction between self and the experiences (i.e., separate experience from action).

4. Finding the ability to respond in the interaction

This can be achieved by helping the client become aware of the influence of contextual variables on her actions (e.g., given your history it is not surprising that you made these choices) and bringing the client’s attention toward the impact of her actions on the contextual variables (and now with this knowledge what can you do that is in line with what matters to you?).

About the presenter:

A faculty member at University College Dublin (UCD) in Ireland, Louise McHugh is not only a world authority on RFT (Relational Frame Theory – the theory of language and cognition that underlies ACT) but also a dynamic and entertaining presenter. Louise is editor and co-author of the newly published textbook ‘The Self And Perspective Taking’, and her ground-breaking work in the use of RFT to help autistic children develop theory of mind and empathy is now being employed by state-of-the-art ABA programs around the world.

Followers of fashion will be aware that alongside Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy and Behavioural Activation sits a third
behaviour-analytic approach; Functional Analytic Psychotherapy is a
"fellow-traveller" to ACT, with FAP workshops regularly offered at ACT
World Conferences as a complementary approach. FAP is considered by some
as a 3rd hand of the 3rd Wave of CBT.

FAP is based on a broad functional analysis of the therapeutic
relationship rather than a specific behavioural model of, say,
depression and as such aims to enhance our therapeutic effectiveness.

As we know Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy is a powerful set of
interventions that has improved the ability of practitioners to provide
effective and efficient services. Yet many feel something is missing and
seek to increase the emotional intensity and interpersonal focus of
their work and create deep and meaningful therapeutic relationships. CBT
manuals rarely provide guidance on these aspects of the work. Even ACT
practitioners might state that the therapeutic relationship remains the
biggest challenge and opportunity for change and is perhaps the most
obvious context of interest to a functional contextualist.

This is where FAP begins. Broadly stated, FAP is about expanding and
living up to our full potential as human beings for whom loving and
living with other human beings is fundamental. FAP seeks to use
functional contextual/behavioral principles to maximize our
relationships and the impact we can have within them. More specifically,
FAP focuses on how CBT therapists can create powerful therapeutic
relationships, how clients’ daily life problems occur in the context of
the therapy session and therapy relationship, and how therapists can
respond to these problems to maximize their impact. FAP aims to
supercharge CBT, boosting its value beyond symptom reduction to create
intense life-changing experiences for some clients. FAP is user friendly
and FAP techniques are applicable to almost any disorder including
depression, anxiety and OCD, intimacy difficulties, personality
disorders, substance abuse, and couples’ work. The behavioral
underpinnings of FAP facilitate its use with empirically supported
approaches such as Cognitive Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy,
Behavioral Activation and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. FAP,
however, is not a typical eclectic approach. All interventions are
informed by clearly stated and understandable behavioral principles.

This workshop will be experiential, geared toward active learning,
interaction and engagement. Participants will be encouraged to take
strategic interpersonal risks to facilitate personal growth while
cultivating mindfulness of the relationship. FAP encourages bringing out
the best in who you are so you can fully commit to your relationships
with those who are important to you, including your clients, and to make
space for the vulnerability that entails. FAP is about expanding and
living up to our full potential as human beings for whom loving and
living with other human beings is fundamental. An important assumption
in FAP is that the therapy relationship is a real relationship;
therefore this workshop aims to train you in FAP skills through
practicing your increased ability to connect with and be fully present
in your relationships.

Participants will be encouraged to discuss ways to tailor FAP principles
to their own clients and to address challenges and concerns about
focusing on the client-therapist relationship. In addition, materials
will be provided to help participants apply the workshop strategies to
their own practice.

Learning Objectives:

Learn how to create a FAP relationship in the context of your
ongoing work

Learn how to add FAP targets to your case conceptualization

Learn the five rules of FAP and how to use them in your work

Learn about and discuss applications of FAP to specific populations

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About the Trainers

Martin has cultivated his personal mindfulness practice for over
25 years. For 17 yrs, working as both psychologist and visiting
Buddhist minister, he facilitated mindfulness-based groups and
counselling services in a central London prison. In private practice,
since 2002 he has been developing the use of ACT in short term work
and weaves many ACT & MBCT practices and procedures into longer term
mindfulness-based psychotherapy. His research interests focus upon
qualitative, participant inquiry methods exploring the integration
of mindfulness meditation with counseling.

Henry J. Whitfield MSc, MBACP, ACBS peer-reviewed ACT trainer.

Henry set up Mindfulness Training Ltd in 2006. His research
interests include the theoretical and practical integration of
mindfulness with cognitive behavioural theories, Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy processes and in case-formulated applications of
mindfulness. After 4 years as a trauma specialist for Victim Support
Lambeth, Henry has since conducted empirical research for City and
Hackney Mind, and SPCP Regents College, London investigating the process of values within different
approaches to trauma counselling. He also works in private practice,
and teaches widely on the subject of Mindfulness-consistent therapies.

Dr.
David Gillanders D.Clin.Psychol , ACBS Peer-reviewed ACT Trainer

Also a clinical psychologist, David first became interested
in ACT in around 2004 via the Contextual CBT for Chronic
Pain work of Lance McCracken. As well as working as a
clinician specialising in chronic pain, David also trains
clinical psychology doctoral students in ACT.

He has led a research programme in clinical health
psychology, focusing on a variety of long term health
conditions. This research has investigated different
theoretical perspectives on psychological factors in long
term conditions. This research strategy has supported thesis
projects for 8 DClinPsychol students, and 3 PhD students.
David has also worked on measuring cognitive defusion (a
core process in ACT).

Dr
Louise McHugh BSc MA PhD

Louise's research interests are centered on the experimental
analysis of language and cognition from a behaviour analytic
and Relational Frame Theory perspective, including
especially the development of complex cognitive skills such
as as perspective-taking and the process-level investigation
of behavioural and cognitive psychotherapies including
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. She has published over 40
papers on these topics and has received funding from several
sources including the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust,
the Waterloo Trust and the Welsh Assembly. Most recently she
was awarded a European Marie Curie career integration award
to join the faculty at UCD.

Dr
Jonathan W. Kanter, Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Dr. Jonathan Kanter is a Research Associate Professor and FAP Term Professor at the University of Washington. He has written numerous empirical and theoretical articles on FAP and provided workshops to student and professional audiences around the world. He is the author of over 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and has edited or co-authored 5 books, including “A Guide to Functional Analytic Psychotherapy: Awareness, Courage, Love, and Behaviorism” with several other authors.

Dr Joseph Oliver BA (Hons), PGDipClinPsyc, PhD

Joe is a clinical psychologist working in the Lambeth Early Onset (LEO) Psychosis Service, South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Joseph graduated from Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, receiving a BA (Hons) before going on to complete his postgraduate diploma in clinical psychology and PhD in 2003. His PhD research investigated the psychological processes of stress and wellbeing within the workplace. Alongside his clinical work, specialising in the area of psychosis, Joe carries out research at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, being involved in a number of trials investigating the use of ACT with people with psychosis and within the workplace. He has published numerous scientific articles and book chapters in the clinical application of ACT and is currently leading on an RCT comparing ACT and mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions for workplace wellbeing.

Joe is also current chair of the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) ACT Special Interest Group, which promotes and develops ACT within the UK, by offering professional development opportunities, grants and training workshops. In addition, he regularly provides ACT and contextual-cognitive behavioural therapy training, both nationally and internationally.